Psychedelic integration
The ceremony ends, and then you are back home with a mind full of questions. Integration is the work of turning what you experienced into steady, lasting change.
Work with me
Trauma-informed psychotherapy: somatic trauma therapy, online
Trauma is not only a memory. It lives in how your body braces, scans and shuts down. Therapy that ignores the body asks half of you to do all the work.
What somatic trauma therapy means
Somatic simply means of the body. In practice it means that alongside talking, we pay attention to what your body is doing while you talk: the held breath, the tight shoulders, the numbness that arrives whenever a certain subject comes close. Those responses are not obstacles to the work. They are the work.
Trauma, in this sense, is not the event itself but what your nervous system had to do to survive it, and kept doing long after the danger passed. That is why you can understand your past perfectly and still feel hijacked by it. Understanding lives in the mind. The alarm lives in the body.
Gestalt, in plain words
My clinical training is a Master's in Gestalt psychotherapy from EAPTI-GPTIM, the European Accredited Psychotherapy Training Institute in Malta, and I am a warranted psychotherapist. Gestalt is a recognised school of psychotherapy with a simple centre: instead of only analysing your past, we pay close attention to what happens in you here and now, in the session, as we speak.
Why does that help with trauma? Because the old pattern does not stay in the past. It shows up live: in how hard it is to hold eye contact, in the joke that deflects the painful subject, in the sudden fog when we get close to something. When a pattern appears in the room, we can actually work with it, not just talk about it.
Alongside Gestalt I am certified in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), and I bring in mindfulness as a practical skill: the ability to notice what is happening inside you without being swept away by it.
“she has completely transformed the way I think and feel about things in the most positive and profound way.”
Who comes to me
Many of my clients have already tried talk therapy, and often medication too, without the change they were hoping for. Not because therapy is useless, but because insight alone was never going to reach a pattern that lives in the body. If that sentence lands, this is likely the right page.
The foundation is Gestalt psychotherapy, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and polyvagal theory: we work with what your body has been holding, the hypervigilance, the people-pleasing, the freeze that shows up in ordinary moments, and we train regulation as a skill, not only as an idea. If you would rather do that part alongside others, my group programs cover the same ground in a closed cohort.
Some clients also work with plant medicine, before or after our work together, and want a therapist who understands that territory without judgment. If a psychedelic experience has stirred up old material, integration and trauma therapy often become the same conversation.
How sessions run
We meet online on Google Meet, usually weekly, for 50 minutes; the rhythm can move between twice a week and twice a month depending on where you are in the process. The early sessions are about safety and pacing: your nervous system sets the speed, and we never force our way into overwhelming material to prove we are working. Trauma work that overwhelms you is not deep, it is just fast.
Change tends to arrive the way steadiness does: gradually, then noticeably. Clients describe sleeping better, reacting less, staying present in conversations that used to undo them. I will not promise you a timeline, because anyone who does is guessing. What I can promise is a clear method and my full attention.
If what you need is forward-looking skills rather than clinical work with the past, nervous system regulation coaching may fit better, and that page explains the difference in plain terms.
Who this is for
- You have done talk therapy, understand your story well, and still feel stuck in the same reactions
- You have tried therapy before and never found a therapist you clicked with
- You want depth-oriented clinical work for trauma, anxiety or long-standing patterns, with someone who listens and takes you seriously
- Anxiety runs in your body: tight chest, poor sleep, a mind that will not stand down
- You suspect past experiences are shaping your present more than you would like to admit
- You want a clinically trained therapist, not a coach, for this part of the work
- You are doing or considering plant medicine work and want a therapist who understands it
In their words
“I've been working with Asha for about a year and half now and I can honestly say (having worked with many therapists over the years) that she has completely transformed the way I think and feel about things in the most positive and profound way.”
“Do not be disheartened that Asha provides therapy through online sessions. Her intuition and insight is amazing. She could even detect if I am not breathing properly and would tell me there and then “don't forget to breathe”! … I felt totally comfortable and in sync with her because as a professional she is trustworthy and non judgemental.”
I met Asha when I was in Mexico. I did a meditation class with her. I had read lots of meditation books before that, but I could never fully get the benefits from meditation. Asha started from ground zero. She explained stuff and answered questions. Now I have a meditation practice that works for me. I ended up doing individual therapy with Asha. She helped me realize a lot of the stuff from my childhood I was just brushing under the rug, and it was actually impacting my life a lot more than I thought. She helped me feel my feelings, because I was always trying to analyze them. You can tell that she's doing therapy from a place of love, and she wants people to get better. It's not just a business for her. If I had friends or family that were looking for a therapist, I would have no hesitation to recommend Asha.
I just finished therapy with Asha, six sessions or more. I wanted to say thank you to this amazing person, because she helped me survive the difficult time that I was going through. I never thought therapy would help, but her advice helped me go through it, and she got me back to being me when I was destroyed. I highly recommend doing some therapy sessions with Asha if you're going through a bad period.
Questions people ask
Does trauma therapy work online?
Yes. I have worked online for years and my clients consistently find that depth does not depend on sharing a room. One client put it plainly: do not be disheartened that the sessions are online. We go at your pace, and you are in your own safe space, which for trauma work is often an advantage.
Will I have to retell everything that happened to me?
No. Trauma therapy is not an interrogation, and forcing the full story early usually does harm. We work with what your body and your present-day patterns bring into the room, and the story unfolds only as far as it is useful, when you are resourced enough to hold it.
How long does trauma therapy take?
Longer than a course, shorter than forever. Some people feel substantial change in a few months; deeper histories take longer. We review regularly, you set the goals, and stopping is always your call. My cancellation policy is simple: 24 hours notice, and changes before that cost nothing.
What is the difference between this and coaching?
Therapy is clinical work, appropriate when the past is alive in the present: trauma, persistent anxiety, patterns that survive your best efforts. Coaching builds skills and structure going forward. I am trained in both, so if we start in the wrong room, we will notice early and move.
Are you licensed?
I am a warranted psychotherapist, with a Master's in Gestalt psychotherapy from EAPTI-GPTIM in Malta, and further certifications in MBCT (UK) and psychedelic harm reduction and integration (Canada). I work online with clients in the US, Canada and Europe.
Related pages
Somatic coaching for nervous system regulation
When your baseline is alert, everything costs more: sleep, focus, patience, joy. Regulation is a trainable skill, and coaching is the structure for training it.
Group work & programs
Some healing happens one to one. Some happens in a room with people who get it, where you do not have to explain yourself first.
